97. The Real Reason the "New Year-New Me" Mentality Is Holding You Back (and What to Do Instead)

In this first episode of 2025, host Laurie Reynoldson challenges the "new year, new me" mindset and shares why starting slow might be your secret weapon for lasting change. Drawing from her past running experience, Laurie explains why there are "no points for starting fast" and how to create sustainable change in midlife. Learn why your decades of experience are an asset, not a liability, and how to set yourself up for success without overwhelming yourself in January.

Key topics:

• Why the "new year, new me" mentality sets us up for failure
• How to ease back into routines after the holiday season
• The importance of building on your existing experience and wisdom
• Practical tips for setting a meaningful tone for your year
• Why scheduling time for yourself should be as non-negotiable as a hair appointment

LINKS + MENTIONS:
Ep. 96: Want 2025 to Be Your Best Year Yet? Do This Before You Get Started!

Year-End Review Guide

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Transcript

0:01

In this episode, which is the first episode of 2025. We're going to talk about why the new year new me mentality is holding you back and what to do instead to intentionally create the aligned life that you're looking to live in 2025. This is going to be a great episode. Let's get started. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. Hey friends. It's Laurie. Welcome back to the first episode of the year-end for the brand new year. I don't know about you, but there is something I absolutely love about a brand new year. It just seems like it's full of possibilities. And excitement. And I understand it's one day it's one day different than, you know, the end of 2024. But it just feels like. Climbing into a bed with brand new sheets on it. There's so much. Goodness ahead. Like it doesn't matter how you ended last year. There's something about turning that page on the calendar. That just makes it feel like. Endless possibilities await in the coming year. Again, I understand it's one day different. We are no different than we were the day before, but it just feels different There's kind of an optimism and an opportunity and excitement and enthusiasm that comes with the beginning of the year that we just don't have when we're wrapping up the end of the year before it. And I think that that could be because the holidays are always so busy. And we're just clamoring to finish all of the things before. We get to turn the page on that shiny new calendar, but for whatever reason, I am feeling pretty optimistic about 20, 25. And I hope you are as well. In today's episode. I want to talk a little bit. About the new year and the opportunities that holds. Um, but I also want to be real with you. Can we just agree that this whole idea of new year new me is complete bullshit. We are not a brand new person, just because the calendar changes. We're literally one day older At the time this episode drops we're seven days into the brand new year. So obviously. Not everything has changed in our life to make us this brand new me in the last seven days. That's not how it works. Right. As high-performing midlife women. We have so much. To build upon. We've got decades of life behind us. We have decades of experience that we're bringing with us into the new year. And so this idea that we're just somehow somebody new, because it's a brand new year. I think it's, it's bullshit. It's almost dangerous to think about it that way. Here's what I mean by that. When we look at a new calendar with all of its endless opportunity and optimism and think new year, new me, this is a year that I'm going to write the book. And run a marathon. And get my eating and check and change jobs so that I. No longer have to suffer through a case of the Sundays and I'm going to fix my marriage. First of all. Kudos to you. If this is going to be a year of big action in your life, but also like slow the hell down. There are no points for starting fast. There are no points. That you can earn no gold stars. No. A letter grades. Like you can't win anything because you started 20, 25. Quickly. I was a runner, a sprinter in junior high and high school. I was actually a state. Sprinter. I wasn't a state champion. I qualified for state. Every year. I never really placed in state, but that doesn't matter. I was a sprinter. So I was running short distances, the 100 meter, the 200 meter. Occasionally, I would run the 400, but that's an entire lap around the track. And that is, that is the, one of the hardest races in track and field. Because you're sprinting the whole time. My dad was also a sprinter. And back in his day, the 400 was something where you sprinted out 100 meters. And then you just kind of jogged the back half of the track. And then you, you had a kick at the end when you were coming towards the finish line. Not anymore. The 400 is a sprint the entire way. And it's, it's just gut wrenching. It's it's a hard run. I'm talking about this because all of the sprints start in starting blocks with the idea that you can get some push and some momentum at the beginning. Which will help you start fast. And most people, their goal is to get out of the blocks as quickly as you can. Although I was a state caliber sprinter in high school. I was awful out of the blocks. I was probably the last person out of the blocks in every race I ran. Not because I was intentional about doing that, but it was just the way that that had happened. I didn't have the quick reflexes that so many of my competition did, which was the gun would go off and then they would immediately take off. Not me. The gun would go off and I would respond, but I was almost always the last one out of the starting blocks. Why am I telling you this? Well, Although I was last out of the starting blocks. I almost always ended up winning the race. Because everyone started fast. And everyone started faster than me. But I had better closing speed. Once I started going, I could turn my legs faster than the people. On either side of me. My arms were pumping. My legs were, I was running really fast. And. That is what I think about when I look at people. On the first week of the year saying new year, new me, and this is a year that I'm going to run a marathon and I'm going to go to the gym seven days a week and I'm going to. Pack my lunch and change my eating and meal plan on Sundays. Have my groceries delivered, make sure that I. Um, sleeping. Eight hours a night. I'm going to start getting up at four 30 in the morning. They change or they try to change everything too quickly. That fails for a couple of reasons that we're going to get into. Suffice it to say, though, There are no points for starting fast. So when it comes to the beginning of the year, my preference. Is to do a little bit of planning. Obviously to take a look back at the year-end review, figure out what it is based on last year. How do I want to actually spend the year moving forward? Create a plan to get me through the year or at least this first quarter. And then once those things are in place. Then I get started, then I try and implement new and different. Activities things, hobbies. Habits. I don't do that right out of the gate. I don't do that at the very beginning. And we're going to dig into that a little bit more. Let's let's start though. One of the things I just mentioned was the 20, 24 year-end review. If you listened to last week's episode, you know, that that entire episode was about. How to. Complete. An effective, probably the most effective year-end review. There's a 27 page. Guide the walks you step-by-step through the exact same process I've used for the last five or six years. There is an entire podcast. About it. Um, it is definitely worth the listen, if you haven't. Done your 2024 year-end review yet. I would suggest. Getting that done this week or next week, if you can. Before you set any goals? The reason why looking back is so important is it's exactly the same reason that we study history in school, which is to learn the lessons to understand mistakes that were made so that we don't repeat them again. And as high-performing midlife women, most of us have started. Each new year in exactly the same way. Which is the calendar page turns. And we are off like a shot. We try and change every aspect of our life. What we're eating, how we're working out, what our job looks like. What's going on in our marriage. What time we're getting up in the morning, we add a new morning routine. And we do that. We keep up the appearances. We keep up with the new schedule. For the first couple of weeks, maybe the first month of the year, if we're lucky. Because it's too much. We tried to change too much. And just like this whole idea that you are not a brand new person, just because it's a brand new year. You can't change everything in your life the first week of the year. Or the second week. Because what's going to happen is real life is going to pull you back to where you were. At the end of last year. It's going to remind you that just because you want to do new and big things in your life, in the brand new year, you still only have 24 hours a day. And seven days a week. Which means. Yes, you can certainly accomplish everything that you've set out to this year. You just can't do it all this month. You just can't start at all this week. And yes, you might have some momentum going into the new year. It is a new year. There's all that excitement and optimism and opportunity ahead of you. But let's think about it this way. For most of us. We've either been on vacation. Or vacation adjacent is how we've been spending our last couple of weeks. Right. Because we had federal holidays. In the middle of the last two weeks, whether that was Christmas or new year's day. and you took either just one day off in the middle of the week. Most of us took a couple of days on either side of the holiday. So we haven't worked a normal week. In at least two weeks at this point. There is going to be some. Catch up at your office. There's going to be some email dig out. We've talked about how many emails one person can receive in just a day. Well, If you haven't been on top of your email box in the last couple of weeks, that guaranteed, there's going to be plenty of email for you to sift through. You're out of practice. You're out of habit. Maybe you have been going to bed later, which means it's harder to get up earlier in the morning. So if your normal time to get up is at six o'clock. So you can go to the gym before you go to work. You probably haven't done that in the last couple of weeks. So what makes you think that getting up at four 30 this week? Because for some reason you think that the only way to meet your goals this year, or to be successful is to get up in the fours. At four 30, just like all of the influencers that you're following on social media, I'm here to tell you that that's a complete myth. You can have a wildly successful life and get up at whatever damn time you want to. Some of us like me. I am more productive later in the day. I like to get up when I wake up, which is usually between six 30 and seven. I am only going to get up in the fours. If I have an early morning flight, That's that's really the only reason to get up that early. The rest of the time. It doesn't work for me. So if your like that, or, or maybe you are a morning person, you usually get up at five 30, but you've put on vacation for the last couple of weeks. And you've been getting up at 6, 6 30. Maybe, maybe you've even been sleeping until seven. There is no way that you can go from. Sleeping in until seven, o'clock staying up until 11, 11 30 at night and expect to. Set the alarm at 4, 4 30 in the morning, pop out of bed. You need to give yourself some time. This week to just get back into the groove. And yes, I understand that you might be wanting to change some of the habits that you brought with you into the new year. But you still have to get back to zero before we start trying to make a lot of changes. Going forward. It's the same reason that when you are getting on an interstate. There is an acceleration lane The interstate. Speed limit is 55 in some areas it's 65 and others. It's 80 at places here in Idaho. I can't go from being stopped at a stoplight to 80 miles an hour. There has to be that acceleration lane so that I can get up to speed. Going a similar speed to the other cars that are already on the interstate. Same works for your life. This week. If the last week or two you've been on vacation or living a non-traditional schedule. That means you need to get yourself back to what was normal before, before we start making those changes. So instead of setting your alarm so early this week, just set it for a normal wake up. Time. And then if you're feeling pretty good with that, Then maybe you can take a bigger step next week, but just like getting out of the starting blocks fast, you don't have to, to win the race. You don't have to start on your to-do list on your big goals on your hairy dreams. This week in order to accomplish them. This year. You've got 12 months to do it. Your going to be better served by. Taking tinier steps right now. Get yourself back to zero. Get yourself back to where you were last year. And then build from there. So we talked about the 20, 24 review. I hope you've done it. If you haven't. Go back. Listen to last week's episode, I will drop clickable link in the show notes. Make sure you download the step-by-step guide that will walk you through. The year in review So we do the year-end review. To learn from what we did last year, so that we can be intentional about how we want to spend the coming year. That means our things that we will. Discover. While we're doing our year-end review that we want more of in the coming year. There are moments that we have definitely forgotten about. That brought us a lot of joy, a lot of happiness. You can easily see. What experiences. Were your best experiences from the last year? On the other hand, you can also pretty quickly identify. Wow. I was always stressed. Super anxious. I just didn't feel like myself when I was around these certain people or I was in these certain circumstances. That information is going to help you. Set some boundaries in the coming year. Maybe their time boundaries, maybe their physical boundaries, maybe their space boundaries. But if you can take a look back. And see. Who caused you the most stress? What experiences did you have that. Made you anxious. Do less of that next year. If, if there are certain people that. Cause you stress or anxiety. Minimize or eliminate the time that you spend with them going forward. If they're in your family. It might not be as easy as just saying yeah. W. I'm not going to get together with that person anymore, but you can set and hold some healthy boundaries that work for you. That allow you to continue that relationship on your terms. But without. Doing the year-end review, you might just have an inkling that. Yeah, I just. I don't feel my best when I'm around that person or I. Find that I feel small or fearful or unimportant when I'm in a certain circumstance. With that information. You can change. What you're going to do in 2025. There are. Questions about challenges you overcame, what were you most proud of? What would you like a do over on What have been your biggest successes or accomplishments? What are your biggest wins? What haven't you finished yet? Literally going through the year-end review is going to help you. Put together. A more successful. Plan for 2025. And I don't mean successful in that your going to definitely hit your end goal by doing this. But you will feel more grounded, more aligned, You'll experience more happiness, you'll experience, more fulfillment and satisfaction doing it on your terms than just allowing the year to happen to you, which is what frankly, most of us have been doing our whole life. So if you haven't. Done your 2024 review yet. Do it now. Do it, do it in the next couple of weeks. Like I said, there's a clickable link in the show notes. You can download the year-end review guide. You can go listen to last week's episode. It's just like Albert Einstein, my favorite quote of his. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results. And for most of us, That's how we have lived our life up until now, because we've been successful because we have had a lot of achievements. We have been able to meet the big goals that we've set for ourselves. And that works great. When it comes to raising small humans and getting promotions at work. It doesn't work as well for building an intentional life that feels aligned with who you want to be. That brings you happiness and fulfillment and joy and satisfaction. And I think for most of us, We're finally realizing, you know what? We get one shot at this life. We're in our late thirties or forties or fifties or. Even our sixties or beyond. Time is not up for us yet. But we can't keep waiting to put ourselves and our needs. And our wants. First and foremost, front and center in our own life. I mean, at what point, and, and here's a question you need to ask yourself. At what point are you going to start living your life for yourself? And I know that plenty of us think, oh, it's so selfish for me. To do what I want to do when the family is depending on me, you know, my parents need me or my kids need me. I, I just don't have time right now to focus on myself. I get it. We're we're all busy. But it's also about priorities. It's exactly the reason why when you are on an airplane, And they brief you on the oxygen system. If the plane. Somehow loses cabin pressure. You need to put your own oxygen mask on first. Because if. You're not getting oxygen. You cannot assist anybody else in your row, even if it's your child, even if it's your parent. Even if you have no idea who is sitting beside you. If they need help, the only way you can help them. Is to take care of yourself first. And as high performing women, we are miserable about that. Like across the board, we feel like it's selfish or we feel guilty. Taking time for ourselves where we feel some shame, like why can't. Why can't I figure out. How to take care of everybody else and myself at the same time, like I'm a smart person. I figure out a lot of shit along the way. I'm wildly successful at work. I run companies. Why can't I figure out. How to be. Happy in my own life. A lot of it is we have just. Been living our lives. In a reactionary mode, we're reacting to whatever comes to us. We are taking care of all the business that needs to be taken care of. We are providing for everyone else in our life, which has been great up until now. But. If you do nothing else in 2025. My. Secret wish for you. And I guess it's not really secret anymore because I'm sharing it with you. But my wish for you. Is that you will realize how important it is for you. To take care of yourself first. To put yourself. Front and center in your own life and then all of the rest of your life, the people, the experiences. Everything else. Come second. Which leads to this idea about. The tone of the year. I used to come up with a word for the year. And I haven't been doing that lately because I had a really hard time finding one word that would describe exactly. What my hopes and dreams were for the year. It was, it was almost like picking one word, just made that word so precious. And. So then I stopped doing it. Then I started doing a word for the quarter and that has served me better. If you are someone who. Picks a word at the beginning of the year, because you feel like you're supposed to do that. You can keep doing that. If that makes you feel better or you can try something new, which is figure out what you want the tone of the year to be. Like, is there a theme for the year? For some of us. 2025 as a year, that, that we feel like we are going big. We've, we've been a little on autopilot the last several years, and we've got some really incredible opportunities to grow. Personally to grow in our business to grow. Emotionally. We just sense that this is going to be a big year of growth that we are ready to go big in 2025. Others of us. Feel like, you know, what. I just need to settle in. Like the last couple of years have been tough and long. And exhausting and I I just need to settle in. I need to slow down a little bit and I need to be a little bit more intentional. About. How I'm going to live my life. This will be the year that. When I make a promise to myself, I'm going to keep it. This is going to be a year that I schedule time for myself. On my calendar and I keep it and hold it. Just like I would a dentist appointment. Or a doctor's appointment. Or a haircut. Right. Men have no idea what we're talking about when, when we talk about, oh yeah, I can't possibly do whatever it is. You're asking me because I have a hair appointment. And if I miss a hair appointment, it's going to be another 6, 8, 12 weeks before I can get in. And there's no way that I'm going to miss getting my hair cut or my hair colored, because it just, it takes too long to get back in. What if this was the year though that you treated the. Promises you made to yourself, the appointments you made to yourself, just as sacred as your haircutting appointment. What if. Instead of. Dropping everything to take care of someone else. Meant that you didn't make it to your Pilates class tonight. Or. You didn't have time to go for your walk. Or you didn't have time to read before bed because you were so exhausted. What if. Instead of living your life, like you have the last couple of years. What if those appointments that you put on your calendar? You kept them the appointments for yourself. You kept them just like you keep all of the other important appointments. In your life for some of us. We, we need to start scheduling time for ourselves because we haven't done that because we feel like I I'm so busy at work. I'm so busy taking care of the kids and taking care of the family and the house. That I just don't have time for myself. What if this was the year that we flipped that. And we took out our calendar and we scheduled. The time that we need for ourselves every single day. If that's too much for you too overwhelming to think about right now. Like how the hell am I going to fit all that time in then schedule a couple of blocks. Each week. Two of them maybe. And maybe it's just an hour, maybe it's a half an hour. Every couple of days, whatever works for you. But start small. cause the problem with starting fast. The problem with telling yourself I'm going to do this every single day. Is real life does come up. And if you miss a day, Then you might just say, you know what, it's not my year. This isn't working out for me. Who was I to think that I could actually accomplish all this this year. I'll just wait until next year. Do something. That will be easy to start. Easy to maintain. And then once you're in the habit of it, you can add to it then. But don't go big right out of the gate. Because again, there are no points for starting big. There are no points for starting strong. But what you need to figure out is what is the tone of the year for you? Is this a settle in year? Is this a GoBig year? Maybe this is a year of change. You know, it's a year of change because you've got kids that are leaving the house maybe for the first time ever. You're going to find yourself in an empty nesting situation. Maybe you had a big career change last year or more this year where either you're changing jobs or maybe you're retiring. You know that this is going to be a year of change. Either. Based on how last year went. Or because there are things that, you know, are happening in 2025. And you just feel like you need to get your footing a little bit. You need to. Get comfortable with. 2025. You, and it's not a new you, I mean, you're, you're bringing with you all of your past experiences. You are bringing everything you've learned everything you've done. You've got this beautiful foundation on which to create. Your best life starting right now. That doesn't mean. That. It has to be this gang busters of a year. When I talk about. Making. Midlife your best life. When I talk about living your best life, I'm talking about living a life that is intentional. It's not on autopilot. I'm talking about living a life that is fully aligned. With the best version of yourself. Which means this coming year might be a year. That you just need. To get resettled. You need to find your footing again because you feel like maybe you lost yourself in the last year or two. You need to remind yourself who you are. So regardless of how it is, you want to spend. 2025. Let's start by figuring out what's the theme of the year. What's the tone of the year. And then we can work. Together to figure out how we're going to make that our reality. And, and sure. I 100% understand that it is January. of a new year. There are plenty of things that are going to happen this year, that we have no idea that are going to happen. That's okay. We can still plan for a big successful year. We can plan for a more measured, settled ear. We can plan for a year where we. Learn a little bit more about who. We are becoming. And we can do that even. When we can't control everything around us. But the first thing we need to do. Is figure out. How do we want to feel? One year from now. And that's going to set the tone of the year going forward. Once we know that. And what we're going to talk about in next week's episode. Is we're going to actually set some goals. Um, if you've been around me for a while, you know, that I planning for me is like a superpower. What I've come to realize is I am so good at planning. That sometimes I get stuck in the planning mode. Instead of execution or taking chances or actually taking action because I want the planning to be so perfect. We're going to talk about that next week. And I'm going to give you some tips. So you want to. Stop by for next week's episode as well. If I were giving out homework and I'm really not, but I kind of am, I guess it's just it's year-end and yeah, we, we do have some homework here. Do your 2024 year-end review. If you have a process that works for you. Great. If you don't or want something that I promise you is more effective than what you're currently using. Make sure to download the year-end review guide and go listen to last week's episode. Um, Be kind to yourself this week, as you get back into the hang of things in the swing of things and back into a routine because vacations over, uh, unfortunately for most of us. You might be a little more tired this week. And that that makes perfect sense. So be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself. Make it a great week and I will see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. And until then take good care. Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.